{"id":549,"date":"2025-05-13T20:46:59","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T20:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/?post_type=chapter&p=549"},"modified":"2025-07-13T21:14:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T21:14:55","slug":"what-is-an-informative-speech","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/chapter\/what-is-an-informative-speech\/","title":{"raw":"What is an Informative Speech?","rendered":"What is an Informative Speech?"},"content":{"raw":"Defining what an informative speech is can be both straight-forward and somewhat tricky at the same time. Very simply, an informative speech <\/strong>can first be defined as a speech based entirely and exclusively on facts.\r\n
\r\n\r\nInformative speech<\/strong>\r\n\r\na speech based entirely and exclusively on facts and whose main purpose is to inform rather than persuade, amuse, or inspire\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nBasically, an informative speech conveys knowledge, a task that every person engages in every day in some form or another. Whether giving someone who is lost driving directions, explaining the specials of the day as a server, or describing the plot of a movie to friends, people engage in forms of informative speaking daily. Secondly, an informative speech does not attempt to convince the audience that one thing is better than another. It does not advocate a course of action. Consider the following two statements:\r\n
\r\n\r\n2 + 2 = 4\r\n\r\nGeorge Washington was the first President of the United States.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nIn each case, the statement made is what can be described as irrefutable<\/strong>, meaning a statement or claim that cannot be argued. In the first example, even small children are taught that having two apples and then getting two more apples will result in having four apples. This statement is irrefutable in that no one in the world will (or should!) argue this: It is a fact.\r\n
\r\n\r\nIrrefutable<\/strong>\r\n\r\na statement or claim that cannot be argued\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nSimilarly, with the statement \u201cGeorge Washington was the first President of the United States,\u201d this again is an irrefutable fact. If you asked one hundred history professors and read one hundred history textbooks, the professors and textbooks would all say the same thing: Washington was the first president. No expert, reliable source, or person with any common sense would argue about this.\r\n\r\n(Someone at this point might say, \u201cNo, John Hanson was the first president.\u201d However, he was president under the Articles of Confederation for a short period\u2014November 5, 1781, to November 3, 1782\u2014not under our present Constitution. This example shows the importance of stating your facts clearly and precisely and being able to cite their origins.)\r\n
\r\n\r\nTherefore, an informative speech should not incorporate opinion <\/strong>as its basis. This can be the tricky part of developing an informative speech, be- cause some opinion statements sometime sound like facts (since they are generally agreed upon by many people), but are really opinion.\r\n
\r\n\r\nOpinion<\/strong>\r\n\r\na personal view, attitude, or belief about something\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nFor example, in an informative speech on George Washington, you might say, \u201cGeorge Washington was one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States.\u201d While this statement may be agreed upon by most people, it is possible for some people to disagree and argue the opposite point of view. The statement \u201cGeorge Washington was one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States\u201d is not <\/em>irrefutable, meaning someone could argue this claim. If, however, you present the opinion as an opionion from a source, that is acceptable: it is a fact that someone (hopefully someone with expertise) holds the opinion. You do not want your central idea, your main points, and the majority of your supporting material to be opinion or argument in an informative speech.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nAdditionally, you should never take sides on an issue in an informative speech, nor should you \u201cspin\u201d the issue in order to influence the opinions of the listeners. Even if you are informing the audience about differences in views on controversial topics, you should simply and clearly explain the issues. This is not to say, however, that the audience\u2019s needs and interests have nothing to do with the informative speech. We come back to the WIIFM principle (\u201cWhat\u2019s in it for me?) because even though an informative speech is fact-based, it still needs to relate to people\u2019s lives in order to maintain their attention.\r\n\r\nThe question may arise here, \u201cIf we can find anything on the Internet now, why bother to give an informative speech?\u201d The answer lies in the unique relationship between audience and speaker found in the public speaking context. The speaker can choose to present information that is of most value to the audience. Secondly, the speaker is not just overloading the audience with data. As we have mentioned before, that\u2019s not really a good idea because audiences cannot remember great amounts of data and facts after listening. The focus of the content is what matters. This is where the specific purpose and central idea come into play. Remember, public speaking is not a good way to \u201cdump data\u201d on the audience, but to make information meaningful.\r\n\r\nFinally, although we have stressed that the informative speech is fact- based and does not have the purpose of persuasion, information still has an indirect effect on someone. If a classmate gives a speech on correctly using the Heimlich Maneuver to help a choking victim, the side effect (and probably desired result) is that the audience would use it when confronted with the situation.","rendered":"

Defining what an informative speech is can be both straight-forward and somewhat tricky at the same time. Very simply, an informative speech <\/strong>can first be defined as a speech based entirely and exclusively on facts.<\/p>\n

\n

Informative speech<\/strong><\/p>\n

a speech based entirely and exclusively on facts and whose main purpose is to inform rather than persuade, amuse, or inspire<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Basically, an informative speech conveys knowledge, a task that every person engages in every day in some form or another. Whether giving someone who is lost driving directions, explaining the specials of the day as a server, or describing the plot of a movie to friends, people engage in forms of informative speaking daily. Secondly, an informative speech does not attempt to convince the audience that one thing is better than another. It does not advocate a course of action. Consider the following two statements:<\/p>\n

\n

2 + 2 = 4<\/p>\n

George Washington was the first President of the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In each case, the statement made is what can be described as irrefutable<\/strong>, meaning a statement or claim that cannot be argued. In the first example, even small children are taught that having two apples and then getting two more apples will result in having four apples. This statement is irrefutable in that no one in the world will (or should!) argue this: It is a fact.<\/p>\n

\n

Irrefutable<\/strong><\/p>\n

a statement or claim that cannot be argued<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Similarly, with the statement \u201cGeorge Washington was the first President of the United States,\u201d this again is an irrefutable fact. If you asked one hundred history professors and read one hundred history textbooks, the professors and textbooks would all say the same thing: Washington was the first president. No expert, reliable source, or person with any common sense would argue about this.<\/p>\n

(Someone at this point might say, \u201cNo, John Hanson was the first president.\u201d However, he was president under the Articles of Confederation for a short period\u2014November 5, 1781, to November 3, 1782\u2014not under our present Constitution. This example shows the importance of stating your facts clearly and precisely and being able to cite their origins.)<\/p>\n

\n

Therefore, an informative speech should not incorporate opinion <\/strong>as its basis. This can be the tricky part of developing an informative speech, be- cause some opinion statements sometime sound like facts (since they are generally agreed upon by many people), but are really opinion.<\/p>\n

\n

Opinion<\/strong><\/p>\n

a personal view, attitude, or belief about something<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For example, in an informative speech on George Washington, you might say, \u201cGeorge Washington was one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States.\u201d While this statement may be agreed upon by most people, it is possible for some people to disagree and argue the opposite point of view. The statement \u201cGeorge Washington was one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States\u201d is not <\/em>irrefutable, meaning someone could argue this claim. If, however, you present the opinion as an opionion from a source, that is acceptable: it is a fact that someone (hopefully someone with expertise) holds the opinion. You do not want your central idea, your main points, and the majority of your supporting material to be opinion or argument in an informative speech.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Additionally, you should never take sides on an issue in an informative speech, nor should you \u201cspin\u201d the issue in order to influence the opinions of the listeners. Even if you are informing the audience about differences in views on controversial topics, you should simply and clearly explain the issues. This is not to say, however, that the audience\u2019s needs and interests have nothing to do with the informative speech. We come back to the WIIFM principle (\u201cWhat\u2019s in it for me?) because even though an informative speech is fact-based, it still needs to relate to people\u2019s lives in order to maintain their attention.<\/p>\n

The question may arise here, \u201cIf we can find anything on the Internet now, why bother to give an informative speech?\u201d The answer lies in the unique relationship between audience and speaker found in the public speaking context. The speaker can choose to present information that is of most value to the audience. Secondly, the speaker is not just overloading the audience with data. As we have mentioned before, that\u2019s not really a good idea because audiences cannot remember great amounts of data and facts after listening. The focus of the content is what matters. This is where the specific purpose and central idea come into play. Remember, public speaking is not a good way to \u201cdump data\u201d on the audience, but to make information meaningful.<\/p>\n

Finally, although we have stressed that the informative speech is fact- based and does not have the purpose of persuasion, information still has an indirect effect on someone. If a classmate gives a speech on correctly using the Heimlich Maneuver to help a choking victim, the side effect (and probably desired result) is that the audience would use it when confronted with the situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"menu_order":1,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-549","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":547,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/549\/revisions\/839"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/547"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/549\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=549"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=549"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppsccom1150publicspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}